I Am
by DarkTaoAngel
Summary: Just a simple oneshot regarding Ren's feelings as he deals with what it is like to change from monster to human. R&R please!


DarkTaoAngel: I do not own Shaman King. This is a bit strange and hard to understand, and very little to do with Shaman King, but it is not as OOC as it seems at first. Please review, and no flames if possible!

Sometimes in my life, as with most everything in this world, changes are made. It seems now more than ever that everything is changing, as fast as though it were a race. I remain the same, constant, for what seems as a forever to me. While the world changes, people change, and all around me I see new things arise, I remain, steadfast and unmoving. Though everything in this world comes to change, and times come to pass, though I grow and my mind wavers of its usual course, my soul stays, as it was, and as it always will be. I remind to think that I take control over my life, my destiny, but even now, had I wanted to change my perspective on life itself, the world and all in it, I would still be, as always was, the same.

People may think in different ways now, as I remain in the past, but though the world seems confident, it is the past that helps me through. I learn as I always have, and I cry as I always have. I smile as I always have, and inside I burn as I always have. My life has changed very little, as progressing years turn more against my everlasting will to survive changing times. I fight as I always have, and even if I lose, I know that I will die, as I always knew I have. Though my past still haunts me, as I have no will to move on, I have found little, though enough, strength left to live each day, no matter how painful the suffer. I have leaned to live with all I have done, and I must face each day the decision to live, when so easily I could die. I have always felt a certain pain at the thought of my life, as it always remains true and constant, and that I can never turn back, I can never move on. I must face the lies and hurt that was brought on by my own self, as each day comes to pass.

Every moment of my life seemed as agony and pain. So then, I ask myself each day I live, how is it that I can continue with my life? The answer is simple. I have always lived this way, and so I always can, and always will. What keeps me alive? What keeps the warmth of hope burning within me although all flames have been distinguished in my heart? I live. I live for myself, but I have much more to live for now. I have changed little, as all around me changed. My outlook on life has remained the same, but life itself has changed as well. And so, in a way, I change too.

To live for another had always been the last thing that I would ever think to do. To depend upon, or to defend, another human being who could only cause wounds that could never heal would be despicable to the person I used to be. But that is just what I was not; a person. The thing I used to be was little more than an excuse for a human, a person.

I have changed little; the only thing that has changed about me is that I have become a person. A real one, more than I ever was. And with becoming a person comes changing your outlook on life, living each day to the fullest. Though much about me has changed, it is only one thing that really has. My life, not everything in it, just that, one thing that leads to everything.

I am human now, and with being human comes everything that I have always stood against. I have always thought wrongly of other humans, but I am like they, and I have to treat them as such. They have done no wrongs, only I, only human. But it is in a human's nature to do as I once thought a great wrong. Now that I am one, I cannot act, as I once believed right.

I have been forced to right so many unspeakable wrongs, forgive so many torturous deaths on my behalf. And though it never seems enough, I am only human like all around me, and that is what I was meant to be. I was a monster, a demon, and I could do nothing but hate. Now I have morals, laws, and feelings. And the pathetic excuse for a human that I used to be is gone, a memory that haunts my every dream. I cannot shake it, and I never would. Because dreams, memories, and feelings are part of who I am now, no matter how hard they are to live with.

My life, however broken, however little, and however tortured, will be my every day. And so I must live with it, and it hurts me every time I think of it, but I must. There is no way to redeem myself, and to continue to live. It is all made easier by the part of me that is human, as it guides my every move.

If I should never live another day, it would always be worth it to know that I died a human, and not a monster. Through the help of friends, and the motivation to try as hard as I can even if it kills me, is all of what has gotten me where I am today. And although the world around me changes, and I remain the same, I would not want it any other way, because it is who I am.

And I cannot change who I am. I cannot change what makes me who I am, Tao Ren.


End file.
